Persons having impaired or no self-locomotion face many difficulties and impediments to receiving adequate medical and custodial care. Examples are persons with spinal injuries that deprive them of the use of their legs. In addition to these widely-recognized causes, there are many others, such as the gradual loss of power to the extremities of persons with multiple sclerosis. Persons dependent on walkers, or those with insufficient voluntary control such as Alzheimer patients may still have some control, but so little as to render them incapable of substantial voluntary movement needed to place themselves in some desired but inconvenient location.
The fact that there are so many such causes and so many involved persons is attested by the large number of wheel chairs and assistance devices which are sold each year. Persons not encumbered by these disadvantages may readily conclude from their own observations that the problems are largely those of passing through portals, fitting into restrooms, and getting onto and off of public conveyances. These are certainly real, and are known principally because they are so much in the face of mobile people who use or occupy the same spaces and facilities. As serious as these are, they represent the more hopeful side of the situation, because they are seen and have attracted solutions.
There is, however, a sadder and quieter side that, because it occurs out of sight and much less frequently, is looked past. These are not totally ignored, but they are not widely seen, and they are not public enough to cause a public outcry. And what is worse, the help that can be given by others societally and personally is inherently limited, and the cost of amelioration with the use of presently-known equipment is too high for many or most individuals to afford.
This invention relates to such a “niche” in the world of persons with impaired or no capacity to move themselves sufficiently. Persons whose limbs cannot respond forcefully to commands are known to be inherently exposed to harm from falls. It is less recognized that even greater harm can result from the handling of these people who have fallen. After a fall, a 911 call will bring a helpful, muscular group of fine men who can readily lift the weight of the person, but who can just as readily break their ribs while they carefully squeeze and lift the person.
Less stressful occasions are nearly as harmful, for example when custodial people lift a fallen person, or transfer one from a bed to a chair. Here both persons are placed at risk. Often it requires two or more people to do this task, which is inherently clumsy. As a consequence a large number of accidents occur, not only to the person, but to those lifting the person. As a consequence workers compensation insurance rates are very high, and often employees will refuse to lift or transfer an impaired person except when absolutely necessary, and at least risk to themselves. Accordingly, they minimize handlings such as transfer from bed to chair, especially when a lift is needed, along with a lateral movement.
There is a set of situations which occur quietly, out of general sight, and usually in private which are not urgent, but which in the long run may result in even greater discomfort and ultimate damage. Surprisingly, these occur in the unlikeliest of places—where succor would most be expected—for example in care facilities, especially hospitals and doctors offices.
Here, when a patient arrives in a wheelchair there are no more than the usual objections or problems in receiving the person being wheeled in, while the person remains in the wheelchair. No problem in the waiting room, and no problem for conversational and superficial examinations, nor of routine testings, such as blood withdrawal.
Instead, the principal, but not the only, situation attended to by this invention arises from the need to examine the body and the insides of an impaired person. For this, one must recognize that square footage in hospitals and doctors offices is scarce and costly. A doctor requires several examination rooms so that he can attend to the needs of several patients in an economical time frame. These rooms need contain only an examination table and enough room for him to move around in it.
An X-ray room needs only space for the equipment and space at one side to load and unload the patient on the table. Any more is wasteful and unnecessary.
In normal practice, an ambulatory person walks or is wheeled into any of the above rooms and stretches out on the table. No problem there. But if that person is not fully responsive and capable of assistance or self-locomotion, he or she must somehow be lifted onto the table with all of the risks discussed above which involve lifting the person onto the table, then the situation is entirely different.
The hospital or the doctor must now factor into the situation all of the costs and risks to place that person in a location where the task can be done correctly. This can be done if all parties take the above risks. Instead, it is surprisingly customary for many internal examinations and even X-rays to be taken while the patient remains in the wheelchair. There are women who have never had a complete gynological examination, or a pap smear or a mammogram because they were examined in the wheelchair—never while on a proper examination table or device where they could properly be viewed.
Too often even routine examinations, regularly given to others, are not performed at all. The insufficiency of these procedures has recently been called into question, because they clearly reflect the giving of services to a degree to disabled persons far below that attainable with the same equipment provided that a person is properly positioned on it. Statutes exist, such as California's Unruh act, which proscribe such situations, but they remain commonplace in the absence of some realistic solution.
It is unfair to cite the hospitals and doctors for this. Their workers compensation insurance rates and office rents are far higher than for most comparable services. Existing equipment that could assist is bulky and very expensive. For example, examination tables and X-rays tables do exist that raise and lower. These are much more costly than those which do not. How can the individual doctor afford these? And must he provide these when so few, if any, of his patients would require them? Economics say no. So except for large clinics, specialized equipment for the transport of physically impaired people is simply not provided, and patients receive less care than if they could safely be placed on a proper surface, or if the doctor risks harming them while attempting to help them.
While silent and private, such situations are not the less saddening or frightening to the involved person. But because they are so private, they have called for no public solution, and are unlikely to obtain one societally. Accordingly, it becomes the task of concerned inventors and companies to provide an acceptable, affordable, and above all, a dignified means to attend to them.
It is an object of this invention to provide a small, portable, inexpensive device to receive a person laterally without raising or lowering him or her, and then to raise or lower him or her to a desired elevation, and then facilitate the lateral movement of the person to a next surface, such as to an examination table, an X-ray table or a chair. All vertical movement is powered, and all lateral movement is done without vertical movement of the person, only a sliding movement that can readily be safely attended to. It is well-recognized that it is much more difficult to raise a person than to move him or her side wise, or to lower the person. The transport provided by this invention will be safe for all involved persons.